I turned my head from him and stared at the heavy curtain that separated me from freedom. The leather was stained and cracked. It was almost as hard as wood after years of exposure to the weather. My mind fastened on a mark that seemed to my disturbed mind to mimic the line of a hog’s back.
The stick, then the carrot. Veal had threatened me, then offered to bribe me. The audacity of his behaviour took my breath away. I was no longer wholly insignificant at Whitehall. Not quite. I had powerful patrons. The King knew my name. Undersecretary Williamson was my master. I was clerk to the Board of Red Cloth, where Mr Chiffinch held sway.
Yet Veal’s master, the Duke of Buckingham, cared nothing for all that. He was too rich to care, too sure of his own power, too arrogant. If Edward Alderley had been killed on his orders, he would hardly baulk at having me murdered. I didn’t even know why.
I thought of trying to escape before we reached our destination. But Veal was beside me on the seat, his thigh nudging mine, and his long legs stretching across the right-hand opening. We were facing the horses. Roger was opposite us, his body angled so that it formed a barrier between me and the left-hand opening. He and his master had long legs and long swords. My hands were tied behind my back, forcing me to sit slantwise on the seat and limiting my possibilities of movement. My captors had boxed me into this confined space, just as they had in the yard.
For a while, we rode in silence – or, to be more precise, with the noises of the street mingling with Roger’s stertorous breathing and the tapping of Veal’s restless fingers on the guard of his sword. They were both old soldiers, I thought, probably the Commonwealth army – not that that necessarily meant anything about their current loyalties, for most of the country had changed its allegiance at the King’s Restoration as easily as a man changes his coat. But there was another quality to Veal that was harder to pin down. He was no gentleman, and he didn’t pretend to be, but he talked like an educated man.
‘Ugly devil, ain’t he, sir?’ Roger said as if I were not there. ‘Seen his ear on that side, and his neck?’
‘Hush, Roger,’ Veal said drily. ‘You must not insult our guest: it is not seemly.’
My mouth was dry and my breathing fast and shallow, however much I tried to slow it down. I had long since lost track of where we were. Did I face torture, or even death? In a flash, there passed through my mind the consequences of my death for others, for Margaret and Sam, who would lose their livelihoods and the roof over their heads, for Hakesby and, most of all, for Cat. I seemed to have acquired dependants without even noticing it, though I doubted Cat would accept that description of herself.
‘You’re very quiet, sir,’ Veal said to me. ‘Which a wise man knows is always a good policy. A word of advice, sir. When you meet our master, talk only if he asks you a question.’ He moistened his lips. ‘He’s a great man in all respects, but liable to fly into a passion if he thinks you’re trying to cross him.’
I looked at him in the swaying gloom of the coach. His face was barely eighteen inches away from mine. ‘I believe you’re afraid of him,’ I said.
Veal turned his head. ‘Blindfold him now, Roger. Make sure it’s tight.’
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
‘HURRY,’ CAT SAID. ‘Hurry.’
Her urgency communicated itself to Dorcas. The two women walked quickly up from the crowded riverside to the safety of the stable off Fenchurch Street.
‘What is it?’ Dorcas whispered, when they were safely in the loft.
‘I must tell someone about this.’
‘The body? Why? The whole town will know before dinnertime if it doesn’t already.’
That wasn’t the point. The point was that the nameless, naked man lying on the wharf was Matthew Gorse. Marwood needed to know that as soon as possible. If the beaver hat was anything to go by, Gorse had come to the Savoy the previous evening, but at the last moment someone had prevented him from talking to Marwood.
The old palace had a long river frontage, and the tide had been high yesterday evening. Cat bit her lip, as she worked out the implications. It was probable that Gorse had been killed soon after he had knocked at Marwood’s door. He had perhaps been stripped at that point, to make him as anonymous as possible, and dumped into the river.
The Thames at night was a lawless place, where only the tide wielded much authority. If the murderer had been luckier, what was left of Gorse would have been washed down the estuary towards the sea, a prey for rats and birds and the other predators of the river. It looked as if the tide had taken the body under London Bridge. That was what had probably done most of the visible damage to the body – the broken limbs and the gash on the chest. After the bridge, the murderer’s luck had changed. When the water was ebbing strongly, the debris that had passed through the piers of the bridge sometimes found its way to the north bank by Billingsgate, with the deeply recessed harbour at Botolph’s Wharf, and the Customs House stairs downstream.
‘Did you know him?’ Dorcas whispered.
Cat nodded.
‘Best keep your mouth shut.’ The old woman laid a brown, dirty hand on Cat’s arm. ‘Not your business, my dear. That’s the way to look at it. Least said, soonest mended.’
‘There’s a man I must see. He needs to know.’
Dorcas withdrew her hand. She seemed to compress herself into a tighter bundle of flesh and bone. ‘Leave it.’
‘I must.’
‘Is it Mr Marwood? The man who wanted you yesterday morning?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is he …?’
‘My lover?’ Cat snapped. ‘Of course not.’
Dorcas shied away from her anger. ‘Send him a letter then. If you must. We’ll buy a sheet of paper. You’ve got a pencil.’
‘It would be better to talk to him if I can.’
Gorse’s murder could change everything, Cat thought – not just Marwood’s investigation but also her own position. Someone at Clarendon House had known more about her cousin Edward and his presence in the garden pavilion on the night of his death than they were prepared to say. Almost certainly that person was Gorse. He had once been Edward’s servant, after all.
‘It’s too dangerous,’ Dorcas whimpered. ‘This could bring the constables to us. This could end at Tyburn.’
‘I don’t know where master is,’ Sam said, draping Marwood’s second-best cloak over the line across the kitchen yard. ‘He never tells me anything.’
‘When he comes back, give him this.’ Cat thrust the folded paper into Sam’s hand. ‘At once.’
‘All right, mistress, all right.’
She had found Sam leaning on his crutch in the yard at Infirmary Close in the Savoy. Margaret was at the market, he had told her. He was alone, ostensibly cleaning shoes and brushing clothes.
‘And what are you doing here?’ he said, lowering his voice to a throaty whisper. ‘Margaret says it’s too dangerous. She nearly had a fit of the Mother when you turned up last night.’
‘It’d take more than me to drive Margaret to hysterics,’ Cat said tartly, thinking that Sam had been drinking strong ale with his dinner again. ‘Is Marwood at Whitehall?’
‘God knows where he is these days. He’s not much at his office, I tell you that. He’s a fool, mistress, if you ask me, dabbling in matters that don’t concern him.’
‘I didn’t ask you,’ Cat said.
‘Mixing with noblemen and gentlefolk never pays,’ Sam said, waving the clothes brush at her and waxing philosophical. ‘Not for the likes of him. It’s against nature.’ He studied the brush in his hand. ‘As is this. It’s not a job for a grown man. The master should get a maid or a boy to do this sort of job. It’s not right for a full-grown man who served His Majesty by sea to be put to such tasks. It’s downright disrespectful to the King. I shall tell master so when he comes back.’
‘You’ll lose your place if you do.’
‘Master might be in the Goat,’ Sam said, returning abruptly to the question of Marwood’s whereabouts. ‘You
know the place? Charing Cross? Mr Milcote’s having his dinner there again – I saw him going in when I went out to fetch a little refreshment – and master’s seen a lot of him lately. Or Mr Milcote might know where he is.’ He dropped the brush into the basket of clothes and shoes he had brought from the house. ‘Tell you what, mistress, I’ll go and ask him, shall I?’
‘No,’ Cat said firmly, her mind filling with a vision of a drunken Sam staggering into the Goat with a discreet message for the fastidious Mr Milcote. ‘You will do no such thing.’
Besides, it was safer not to involve Milcote. She smiled at Sam, which took him unawares and made him frown, and slipped out of the yard.
The more she thought about it, the stronger the argument for enquiring at the Goat became. If Marwood were at the tavern, she would send in an unsigned note to him, telling him that Gorse’s body had turned up in the river by Billingsgate. She wouldn’t go inside, of course, for fear of Milcote seeing her.
At the door of the tavern, Cat asked the porter if Mr Milcote was dining with a friend named Marwood inside, as she had a message for him. The man said he didn’t know, but he would enquire. As ill-chance would have it, however, just as he was beckoning his boy, Milcote himself came down the stairs. The porter bowed and stood aside to allow him to pass out into the street.
‘This young woman’s asking after your friend, master,’ he said, nodding towards Cat. ‘If you dined with him today.’
There was nothing she could have done to avoid the meeting. Before she could move, Milcote’s eyes met hers. Despite her changed appearance – the shawl, her walnut-stained skin, the shabby cloak – he knew her at once; she saw the flicker of recognition on his face. In that instant, a sense of her own folly welled up inside her. She had brought this danger on herself.
She turned to flee. It was too late. He caught her wrist. She swung back, her hand diving into her pocket, searching for her knife.
‘God’s body, sir,’ the servant said. ‘What’s this?’ He seized Cat’s other arm. ‘A thief?’
‘It’s nothing,’ Milcote said. He drew the struggling Cat an inch or two closer to him. ‘It’s all right. I need to talk to this woman.’ He stared down at Cat and said softly, too low for the porter to hear, ‘I mean you no harm.’
Her fingers closed on the knife. She could try to stab him but he was probably fast enough and strong enough to prevent her. Even if she succeeded, what then? The porter was watching, and so was his boy. The street was crowded. There were soldiers at the gates of the Royal Mews. They would raise a hue and cry in seconds.
‘Pray believe me,’ Milcote said.
He tossed a coin to the porter, who ducked back into the tavern with a leer on his face. It was clear how he interpreted what was happening.
Cat felt the blood rising to her face. ‘Why should I trust you? You of all people?’
Milcote ignored her. He urged her up the street, taking her up St Mary’s Lane and then into one of the smaller streets west of Covent Garden, where there was no one around.
‘You’re a fool to show yourself in the street, Mistress Hakesby,’ he said, stopping outside a shuttered shop. ‘There’s a warrant out for you.’ He frowned. ‘What was that the porter said? That you were asking if I was dining with a friend. Who?’
She said nothing.
‘It must be Marwood.’ He took her by her shoulders and shook her. ‘Why? Do you know him?’
Her right hand was still in her pocket. She eased the knife from its makeshift sheath. She said, ‘I hear that he has the King’s authority to investigate Mr Alderley’s murder.’
Milcote released her. He looked puzzled. ‘But that doesn’t make any—’
She ripped out the knife and jabbed it at the front of his left thigh. It penetrated less than an inch but for an instant the shock paralysed him. She ran past him, into an alley on the left. He shouted with pain. She swung right into a larger street.
They were not far from Covent Garden and she knew the area well. The knife was still in her hand but concealed under her cloak. Milcote’s footsteps were pounding after her. She darted into the yard behind a bakery, opened a door, ran through a kitchen full of startled faces, through the shop and outside by the street door into the lane beyond.
She didn’t stop until she reached the decorous environs of Lincoln’s Inn Fields. She stood beside one of the gravel paths, panting, a stitch in her side. Two fine ladies were approaching on foot, with their footmen behind. Suddenly, Cat bent double and vomited not ten yards away from them.
‘Another drunken whore,’ the elder lady said in a shrill voice. ‘Why don’t they keep them out of here?’
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
THE COACH DREW up. I heard the coachman jump down and the clatter of him lowering the steps. The door opened. Veal scrambled out, his sword knocking against my leg. Then, with no warning, Roger pushed me out of the coach. In my blindness I missed my footing and stumbled. Veal caught me.
‘Steady, sir.’ His arms held me up. He was all bone and muscle; there was nothing soft about him; his coat felt like good quality broadcloth but my finger snagged on a hole. ‘Roger, you must be gentler. Come, sir, I shall take one arm and Roger shall take the other.’
They manhandled me across a muddy, stone-scattered surface which smelled of fresh manure and a cesspit; perhaps a stable yard. I heard the crack of whip, the jingle of harness and the diminishing clatter of hooves. Afterwards, there were few sounds apart from our own footsteps, the distant noise of the streets and Roger’s heavy breathing – until, with sudden, piercing sweetness, a missel-thrush burst into song.
Judging by the acrid smell in the air, we must be somewhere in the fire-damaged ruins. But probably in an area where the rebuilding had not begun, and where the refugees hadn’t planted their shelters.
There was the clack of an iron latch.
‘Steps down, sir,’ said Veal. ‘A little narrow, so I shall lead the way, and Roger will bring up the rear.’
As we slowly descended the stairs, a smell of damp, drains and old fires rose up to greet us. There were sixteen steps and, at the bottom, another door; this one required a key.
Once inside, I stood there, arm in arm with Roger. There came a scrape of flint and steel, and the sound of Veal blowing gently on the tinder until he succeeded in coaxing a flame. The stink of a tallow candle filled the air.
‘Roger, tell Mr – ah, Mr Pearson that we await his pleasure down here, would you? I’ll stay with Mr Marwood. But first, tie him to the ring on the wall, just in case.’
There was nothing gentle about Roger, and when he tightened the knots about my wrists and dragged my arms further back, I almost cried out with the pain of it. A moment later the door closed behind him, and I was alone with Veal.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘we have the chance of a little private conversation. At last.’
He untied the blindfold. The wavering flame of the candle made me blink.
I swallowed, trying to bring moisture into my mouth. ‘What does your master want from me?’
‘I shall leave that for him to tell you. But I can’t tell you how glad I am to have you here at last. You’ve led us a merry dance, you have indeed, and my master’s been growing impatient.’ Then, without any warning, he switched tack: ‘Where’s the little girl you brought back from the Fens? Still at my Lady Quincy’s?’
‘I don’t know. Why do you want her so badly?’ When he didn’t reply, and as I felt I had nothing to lose, I threw other questions at him: ‘Did you kill Edward Alderley? Did you throw Dr Burbrough in the millpond?’
‘Of course not,’ Veal said. His harsh Northern voice was well-adapted for outrage. ‘What do you take me for?’
‘A kidnapper, for a start. And you broke into Alderley’s lodgings after he died, and God knows what you stole from there. You—’
‘I took nothing that was not my own or someone else’s.’ His voice had grown passionate. ‘As for Ned Burbrough, he is my friend. Or rather he was. He came to the
mill to talk to me about my – ah – my visit to Jerusalem, and I admit we had a disagreement, sir, as friends sometimes do, I don’t deny that. But nothing more. But as the doctor made his way back, Roger said, the poor fellow slipped on the stones and fell under the mill wheel. Roger saw it all.’
Dear God, I thought, there’s no fool like a holy fool: had it not occurred to Veal that Roger might have pushed Burbrough under the mill wheel to shut his mouth, and Burbrough had survived only by a miracle? Roger would not be the first servant to play a different game from his master’s.
Veal’s features were working with anger, which he suppressed with an obvious effort of will. ‘And that you should accuse me of trying to murder him, sir!’ he went on in a quieter tone. ‘That’s unjust. I would not wantonly take the life of a fellow man. I’m a clerk in holy orders, I’d have you know, not a hired assassin.’
I gaped at him. ‘You? A clergyman? But you wear a sword, not a parson’s coat, and you—’
He drew himself up. ‘Sir,’ he said, ‘my present occupation is not of my choosing. It has been forced on me by circumstance.’ Frowning, he took a step or two, kicking viciously at a stick that lay in his path. Then the need to explain made him burst into speech. ‘I had no thought of holy orders at first, mind you. I was intended for the law. But after the university, I joined the New Model Army. That’s where I learned to use a sword, and where I met poor Roger – he served under me, and when he was wounded at Marston Moor all those years ago, I prayed with him. Then God called me to serve Him in other ways. So I was ordained and became an army chaplain. Under the Commonwealth, I was presented with a living in Yorkshire. But when the King returned, I was most unjustly deprived of my benefice.’
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